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Bulldrek

UPDATE!!!  6/8/01

Gen Con Shadowrun Events now ONLINE!

Updated 05/07/01

The Aftermath

So it's been a couple months now since FASA shuffled off the mortal coil, so to speak.  So the question on everyone's mind now is:  Now what?  

Good question.  And one I don't yet have the answers for.  The FASA Closing FAQ compiled by Dumpshock is still your best source for answers, and the Dumpshock Forums are still your best source for rumors, speculation, and what not. 

Here's what I know, and what I speculate (for those that care).  Mike Mulvihill's at WizKids now.  So's Sharon, along with one of the Editors from FASA.  My best wishes go out to them in their new jobs.  At the moment, no one's sure exactly what those jobs are, but...  that's ok :]

Battletech and Shadowrun are both Wizkids Licenses.  Shadowrun has found a publishing company in the form of FanPro, the company responsible for the German editions of the Shadowrun books, as well as several original books for the Shadowrun game that were unofficial and in German only.  

Rob Boyle, Mike's former Assistant at FASA, has been announced as the English Line Developer for FanPro.  What's this mean?  Well, basically, Rob has Mike's old job, while Mike's received a promotion of sorts.  Rob is in charge of the SR RPG line, while Mike gets the final say on anything with the SR logo on it.

Year of the Comet has been announced as the first product to be released.  It's being aimed as a possible pre-Gen Con release, but definately by Gen Con.

Speaking of Gen Con, there will be a Shadowrun Tournament this year, headed up by yours truely.  Now if only I can get my GMs to get their rears in gear and get cracking on this thing.  Regardless, this should be a memorable convention, one way or another. 

Beyond that, who knows.  Battletech hasn't been discussed at all, and the fates of the other game lines (Namely Crimson Skies and Vor) are up in the air.

Baby, if you've ever wondered 

Wondered, whatever happened to me...  I'm living on the air in Cincinatti...  Cincinatti WKRP. :]  Now that brings up some old memories :]  Anyways, this time around, it also describes my current locale.  I've moved down to Cincinatti and in with a guy some of you know from online, a buddy of mine named Toon.  Got a job at a local Media Play, since it was a simple matter to transfer down from Suncaost (Since both are, or were, at least, part of the Musicland group :)).  

It's not too terrible, though I'm looking forward to moving on to my new job, which I'll start next week with Health Alliance Group of Cincinatti, a group of hospitals in the area.  I'll be doing some sorta wageslave type computer work, but it pays a lot better, is full time, and gets me off my knees :]

I've been slow to get back to writing, but with the move and all, and the fact I have a real job these days has been holding me back at all.  That, and my tendency to procrastinate a bit.  But hopefully I'll remedy that a little sometime soon.

Anyways, in the meantime, I've been doing the same ol' same ol'.  A little gaming, lately mostly D&D.  Some online gaming with Asheron's Call.  Sometime in the next few days I intend to get ahold of House Party, the new expansion for The Sims (great little game, that).  I'd like to get a hold of Baldur's Gate II sometime before the expansion for it comes out, but it looks like I probably won't.  No money.  Paying bills and such sucks :]

For those of you who are unfamiliar with it, Asheron's Call is a wonderful little online game.  It's not gotten quite the publicity that Evercrack has, but...  I've tried them both, and frankly, I like AC a lot better.  

With EQ, it took me hours just to manage to level up once or twice, and days to accumulate enough money to buy a simple suit of armor.  The highlight of several days of playing was buying a couple of backpacks.  Granted, I'm sure the game is a lot easier with some help from someone, but, I gave it a go without help.  And it was damned rough and slow going.  Combine that with the burtally unmerciful reality of death, both the XP loss and the loss of all your current EQ and Money, it was just relatively disillusioning.  After several weeks, I gave up.  I have a level 8 or 9 warrior, and a level 5 Wizard, and while the game had some cool stuff to it, it simply wasn't enough to warrant my time, effort, and money.

AC on the other hand was much better suited to my tastes.  Granted, to some who've played EQ, AC is a good deal easier and more forgiving.  It' got it's quirks and it's downsides, but overall, it's a much nicer game.  With just a few hours of play time and no direct help or loot from anyone, you can level up at least to level 4 and outfit yourself with a decent suit of starter armor.  Magic items are easy to come by, and death is a hinderance, but not a killer.

At low levels, death hardly effects you.  You lose one item, usually one of your most valuable, and you suffer a Vitae penalty.  Vitae reduces your stats and skills by a percentage until you earn some more XP.  A couple of deaths doesn't really effect you too much, though a lot will nearly cripple you.  And having most of your gear makes retrieving your corpse a good deal easier.

The main draw, for me, was the customization, though.  With EQ, you pretty much played an archetype that was set from the get go.  You had your choice of a number of races, which was a plus.  And each race had it's choice of a number of classes.  But past that, you were limited.  You got a certain number of starter spells/skills based solely on class/race.  You had the majority of your stats set for you, with only a handful of points to play with, and you had your choice of like 6 heads for your character.  No choice of clothing styles/colors, limited choice of character "looks", and pretty much every fighter was the same, from how he dressed/looked to what skills he has.

With Asheron's Call, your choices are much less limited.  You get dozens of different facial styles to choose from in three different areas (upper, middle, and lower face) to give you literally thousands of options, you can choose skin, hair, and eye colors (and tones), and you can choose your starting outfit and the colors for it.  The only limitations here are that AC has only three human races to choose from:  Sho, Gharundim, and Aluvian.  think of Aluvians as Europeans, Gharundim as Arabian, and Sho as Oriental, and you're set.  All three races are human varients, with no other intelligent races available. 

The classes are also much more variable.  While  you can choose a number of pre-made "classes", which have most of your skills and stats set for you, with some "discretionary points" to use in there as well, you can also choose an "adventurer", which pretty much means "Do whatever you want".  You pick how your stats look, what skills you have, etc.  And your choices of starting towns is more broad.  For example, Sho don't have to start in one of the Sho starter towns.  This does mean the towns are a bit sparse in areas, as some towns are just more unpopular than others.  With 9 start locations, you have some options.

Overall, I strongly recommend the game to anyone thinking of playing Asheron's Call.  If you do, start on Harvestgain, and look for Bull.  I'm also in a great allegiance (The system is an explanation for another day :)), the Knights of WInchester.  Great bunch of blokes, and one of the biggest allegiences on Harvestgain (or any of the game worlds, for that matter :)).

And in other news...

Well, this time around I've decided to try and get something onto this damn page besides some excuses as to why there's no new stuff.  And I actually succeded.  Almost.

I'm putting up my finalized Immortal rules based off the Highlander movies and TV show, Shadowrun:  the Quickening.  These appeared relatively recently in The Shadowrun Supplemental #13 (Thanks to everyone who's written me about them so far.  Always encouraging to get a bit of praise :)).  

Speaking of TSS, it's been nominated for the Origins Awards for Best Ametuer Game Periodical.  Since I've been a part of TSS since day one, and a regular contributer, well...  let's just say I take pride in seeing it do well. :]

In other words...  Go.  Vote for TSS.  Or I break your legs. :]

Anyways...

Besides some "recycled" articles, I'm also working on a couple pages dedicated to Gen Con and Origins, the two conventions that form the focal point of my summers.  There will be some links to Wizards main page, info on what's going on at each convention, what the SOGgies (Shadowrun Online Group) will be doing at the conventions, pictures, stories, and whatever else I can dig up.  There's not much there yet, but for now check out the Histories of Gen Con and Origins.  If you have anything related to the conventions that you'd like to see on the net, please, drop me an e-mail and let me know! :]

Not much else this time around.  I'm eventually going to get around to getting a new vote online.